Right after the baby was born, I was obsessed with losing weight without actually doing anything about it. Having struggled with being overweight in the past, I knew it wasn’t something I could be abstract about. And yet, it took me well over a year to get down to business and take care of myself, which finally meant addressing weight gain.
Emotionally, it wasn’t pretty.

July and it’s already time for the thirteenth Healthy & Fit Family. There are plenty of people who still believe that 13 is unlucky, but I am feeling pretty confident about this edition. As usual, the carnival is limited to the ten submissions I thought were most family-oriented, health-oriented and fitness-oriented.

There were over 30 submissions to The Twelfth Healthy & Fit Family and you’ll find the ten most practical, most family-oriented and that we just liked best at Wisdom of Healing.
Now that the weather is good, quite a few of the posts have to do with being outside and enjoying nature, but there are also a few posts of special interest to new and expectant parents. There are special notes from the adventure that is VBAC and the marsh adventures of a little baby and his parents.
The Healthy and Fit Family July edition will be hosted here at Babylune …read more

I am very concerned about the charity campaign. In April, we served up several thousand page views fewer than we did in March. Sure, there have been server problems, but those should be resolved.
So, I am going to try something different to increase page views, to tantalize readers…I am going to use a trick from second grade. I shall tell A SECRET!

 Take one popular blog carnival, run it monthly, limit it to ten spots and you’ve got a very readable, very competitive collection of posts. Hopefully, Craig Harper is right and all of us need to learn to have our work judged and evaluated. Still, managing expectations of perfection is tough for everyone.
I do worry about the decision to limit the carnival to 10 spots sometimes, but I want it to be completely readable. Parents who want to head healthier families are often overwhelmed with blame guilt information and it can often seem impossible to counteract the billions of dollars in advertising …read more

Dinner last night was the final meal in our Eating the Alphabet Challenge.

Yes. We ate stuffed vine leaves from a can. You have to understand, my husband was born in Bulgaria. Vine leaves, aren’t just part of our eating the alphabet adventure. They’re part of our family culture. If my mother-in-law knew about this, she’d have fit. (Ah, we miss you, Nadka.) She could make beautiful sirme, taking care to fill each vine leaf with the same amount of delicious filling, shaping it perfectly. I don’t have that kind of time on a work day. I also don’t have access to the quality, farm grown ingredients Nadka did.

You may have noticed that, as a the writing genius I know I am, I have always felt neglected and unappreciated for my talents. Especially in the arena of my weight loss expertise. My tight pants theory, my cook for the kids idea, all consigned to the margins of weight loss literature. And yet, I did weigh 223 pounds in January of 1999. and now I weigh about much, much less (although, I still have some work to do).
There is nothing you can’t do to lose more than 40 pounds too. Stopping the alcohol, eating less and jogging 5km four …read more

Inspired by My Name is Mommy and her well-communicated efforts to lead a healthier life, I am pleased to present the Healthy & Fit Family, a blog carnival.

Today’s blog entry has been suspended by teething.
Back tomorrow.
Until then, read this classic post on postpartum weight loss that I felt never got the number of comments it deserved.
What do you think? Should I write a diet book?