Monthly Archives: September 2023

Weaning from breastfeeding can cause you to gain weight. Who would have thought?

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After the semi-annoying elevator exchange with my neighbor yesterday, this morning after my workout, I decided to hop on the scale (my first time since the beginning of the year). Last year, I’d had my weight checked a number of times: at my two OB-GYN visits, at my endocrinologist’s office, and a handful of times at home. I was proud to say that last year, I’d actually lost pretty much all my pregnancy/baby weight as of September and was back at my pre-pregnancy weight of 117 pounds. I wasn’t even sure how that happened so quickly, but I figured it was due to 1) genes, 2) lifestyle and diet, including exercising regularly, and 3) breastfeeding/pumping.

I’ve never been a scale checker; I never even owned a scale before I lived with Chris. So I always gauged my “weight” by how I felt and how I fit into my clothes. Around June of this year, I went to purchase new pants. Since the summer was quite hot, I actually hadn’t worn those pants (or any pants, for that matter) until this month… when I realized that the pants felt very snug around my waist and stomach. I already knew I had developed more belly fat at the beginning of the summer when I put on my swimsuit and looked at myself in the mirror; I wasn’t totally pleased with what I saw, but I tried to do more core strengthening work to address it. Then, because husbands always do what they do, Chris commented a couple times that he was surprised I had developed a little belly. “It must be because you aren’t pumping anymore! Maybe you need to start pumping again!” he teased, while poking at my belly.

That was not nice, but that was just a reminder to me of what I already knew: I was developing more fat around my mid-section.

So I hopped on the scale this morning, and BAM: there was a scary number staring back up at me: 129 pounds. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? I knew I had gained weight, but TWELVE EXTRA POUNDS?

I did some quick Google searches, and alas, it’s really because of weaning: it’s very common for mothers who breastfeed to gain weight once they wean. The reason for this is a sudden change of hormone levels that no longer push prolactin (the breastfeeding hormone) and instead push estrogen (they are at odds with each other hormonally). Your body is also adapting to no longer using up a large amount of energy (calories) to create and pump out breast milk for your baby. Your body is essentially adapting to a new normal, a new, postpartum, post-breastfeeding state. Who knew that at 21 months postpartum, I’d still be thinking and talking about my “postpartum state”?!

Late last week, I was already starting to incorporate different low impact workouts to vary things up for myself. But now, I’m also thinking about re-jiggering my workouts so that I always have an hour dedicated on weekday mornings. So many times, I’ve had to cut it short due to morning work calls. If it means I need to wake up earlier to do it, then so be it. Ten years ago to lose weight and get in shape, I used to wake up at 5:45am several mornings a week to go to bikram yoga! And when I wasn’t doing that, I woke up at 6am to get to a 7am hour-long workout class, and then worked out another half hour since I didn’t want to go to the office that early! If I could do it then, then I can definitely do it now, especially with a gym right in my building. I have no excuses, even with a toddler to help get ready every morning. I am definitely doing this: Operation Lose 12 Pounds in the next several months.

Neighbor thought I was fat when I was actually pregnant.

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Since we moved into this building in 2017, there is a small handful of faces I recognize who are still here, and we oftentimes will say hi and exchange pleasantries. One of these guys used to be in the gym with me pre-pandemic, but since then, he’s always sitting in our building lounge with a direct view of the elevators. So when I get off on that floor, which is the same level as our gym, he generally will always see me get on and off, and we’ll wave to acknowledge each other just to be friendly.

We happened to run into each other in the elevator today when I went to pick up Pookster from school. He asked me how my workouts have been going, and I told him that I might have overworked my legs yesterday because they are extremely sore today. Out of nowhere, he says, “Can I be honest, and I hope you aren’t offended… you have lost, so, SO much weight since last year and look great!”

I was so confused. What is he referring to? I haven’t lost weight since last year…? And then it suddenly hit me, AFTER I got out of the elevator: he likely confused this for when I was actually pregnant — you know, he probably thought I was fat when in reality, I was actually growing and carrying a BABY? Most people’s perceptions of time have been muddied from 2020 through now, so everything seems to blend.

Freakin’ men. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.

Bo ssam on a Monday night

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One of the greatest things about working from home is the level of flexibility I have, plus the extra time I have to do things that is *not* spent on commuting. When I’m working from home, it’s easy for me to take breaks by stretching my body out, doing wrist/elbow exercises with small weights to keep my mild carpal/cubital tunnel in check, and even do meal prep for dinner. This Monday, I had only a couple meetings in the early afternoon, so before I started my work day, I popped a six-pound pork shoulder into the oven at 300 F to slow roast for the next six hours. It would be ready just in time for dinner after I’d bring Pookster home from school. I’d periodically take a peek in the oven to see how it was doing, but other than that, it was pretty hands off, as the oven does all the work: that’s the beauty of “low and slow” with the oven or the Instant Pot, my most preferred ways of preparing weeknight meals.

Yesterday, I had already brined the pork shoulder, plus prepared two sauces: one ginger scallion sauce, and one ssam sauce (a mix of dwenjang, gochuchang, oil, vinegar, and honey). So once the bo ssam was ready, I just had to let it rest and cool, cut it, and then wash lettuce leaves to wrap.

Now, we have pork and sauces to eat the rest of the week. It’s a pretty good homemade meal week for us.

Weekend naps for toddlers: every parent’s challenge

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One of the greatest things about daycare/school, at least for our family, is that Kaia is positively peer pressured into a routine, especially the midday nap that happens anywhere between 12-2:45. After the class has their morning activities and lunch, the teachers check and change diapers, then put all the kiddos down for a nap on their little cots. And since day 1, Kaia immediately got into that routine with no fuss at all; the teachers have always said she’s been a good napper and has never resisted napping.

On Saturdays, we usually are out and about, and during that time, Kaia will usually fall asleep and have her nap in the stroller. So during the seven days of the week, Sunday is the worst day for us to get her to actually nap. We’ve tried getting her to sleep on her bed, on our bed, and it rarely works. Napping at home is a nightmare on Sundays. We usually resort to taking her on a stroll to nowhere, on the streets of the Upper West Side, to see if the movement will get her to finally pass out. So this afternoon, when I was pushing her around outside, I noticed all these other parents pushing their babies and toddlers in their strollers, and I thought… are they all trying to get their kids to nap, too?

This afternoon, I was in the elevator at Target trying to go down, and another mom got in with me and her son, who looked to be a similar age to Pookster. She asked me how old Pooks was, and I responded, and found out that her son was just two months older.

“I don’t really need to buy anything; I just need to move to get this kid to nap!” she whispered to me.

“ME, TOO!” I responded, laughing. “I think that’s what every parent of a young child is here in Target for!”

I left Target. I walked up to 77th and Columbus. I took Pooks to the playground. She refused the swing and insisted on running around aimlessly around the play structure. She refused to get on it. I had to fight her to get her back into the stroller. She was clearly exhausted but refusing to sleep. We strolled some more. And more. And more.

…And she finally fell asleep… at 4:15pm.

Pookster’s eating habits when other people are around

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When we started eating out with Pookster, I was a little worried how distracted she’d get with other people around and all the other senses that would be stimulated. And rightly so: just after she turned 11 months and we actively had to eat out with her during our first international trip to Germany and Austria, eating with her was… quite frustrating. She’d get distracted by literally everything: other people, passersby, noises, lights — you name it, and it would distract her from eating. Gradually, though, she got more used to eating out, and she would happily try new foods and actually eat the food that was presented to her.

Well, I will say that while eating at home is very different than eating outside for her, she definitely does have a tendency to be more distracted and eat less adventurously when other people are around. Whether that is when a friend comes over or when we’re out at a restaurant with family or friends, she definitely doesn’t eat as well as when it’s just the three of us. I’m not sure why it is, or if she just wants to get the attention of the other people at the table, so she can only concentrate on a select few foods at a time. Regardless, I hope this doesn’t keep up. I don’t want people thinking we’re exaggerating or lying about how well she eats since she doesn’t seem to display this adventurous eating when around others…

Little Thailand in New York City

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Early on in my time in New York City, I realized that I was in a neighborhood (Elmhurst, and next to another one, Woodside!) that had excellent, authentic Thai food — Thai food that wasn’t extra sweetened with sugar or chili-reduced, but was actually true to the flavors of Thailand. The Thai restaurants of Elmhurst and Woodside do not just have the standard pad thai, pad see ew, or tom yum soup dishes (some actually do not have any of these dishes!), but dishes that regional, super spicy, and unforgiving when it comes to whether you have been exposed only to Americanized Thai food or not.

Today, I went to Elmhurst to have lunch with friends who live in Queens, and we met at a spot called Khao Nom, which I had wanted to try for a while. Part of the reason I wanted to check this spot out was due to its extensive takeout selection for Thai desserts. For the longest time, I had no idea what Thai desserts even were outside of sticky rice with mango, but after living in Elmhurst, I realized that Thai desserts overlap so much with what I was exposed to with Vietnamese desserts — lots of coconut, pandan, palm sugar, fresh exotic fruit (jackfruit! Mango!), and lots of rich flavors. Khao Nom has a large counter in the front where they line up all their desserts which you can take to go. Every day, they have anywhere from 8-12 varieties, and when I entered and saw all these lined up in neat rows, I felt like a kid in a candy shop: I had no idea how to even start narrowing down my selection! All I knew was that I couldn’t leave without fewer than three types.

Today, Khao Nom had kanom buang, which I’d seen frequently on Mark Wiens’s food videos in Thailand: Thai crispy, thin pancakes usually filled with coconut, sweet egg yolk, and even dried shrimp. They had pandan cendol, a cold summer soupy dessert with rich coconut milk and pandan. And just in time for Mid-Autumn Moon Festival at the end of this month, Khao Nom had Thai-style mooncakes. They are very flaky and buttery, filled with mashed mung bean or taro, as well as a small salted duck egg yolk. After much deliberation, I ended up choosing three desserts after our delicious lunch: Thai style taro mooncakes, Tokyo pandan (rolled Thai style pancakes filled with pandan custard), and pandan coconut mini jellies. I loved all three of them.

I was thinking about the vast variety of Thai desserts as I left the restaurant, and I thought: yep. That’s how you know if the area where you are has a high concentration of legit X-cuisine: if they have a BAKERY (or multiple, for that matter!) that can give you these types of treats!

September means… it’s officially autumn! BRING ON THE AUTUMN SQUASH!

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Summer ending can feel sad — once Labor Day arrives and we’re in September, it feels like the warm, jacket-less days are becoming numbered. I love summer weather when all I have to do is throw on a dress or shorts, and I don’t have to worry about layers.

But like with every year I’ve been in New York, I do get excited about September coming. I always look forward to all the autumn/winter squash, like butternut, buttercup, and kabocha (!). While zucchini is fine, and I tolerated yellow squash last summer because Pookster loved it so much, I’ve never been a huge summer squash person. I also love the pumpkin flavored things that come out everywhere, especially at Trader Joe’s. I look forward to stocking up on all my cans of Trader Joe’s organic canned pumpkin, plus seeing what new pumpkin products they have (and yes, I do check to see whether they actually have pumpkin in them). This past weekend, I picked up my first butternut squash for the season. And yesterday, I asked Chris to pick up yet another one since they were on sale at Whole Foods. I am looking forward to buying even more as the month progresses, and more varieties of squash become available.

A colleague asked me, referencing the squash in the background of my apple cider donuts picture from yesterday, if my background with all that squash (seriously, there were just two!!) and apples was real, or a photo board. I told her that yes, all the food, both in the foreground and background, were real. Why would they not be…?!

“Wow! How can you have that much squash at your house!” she exclaimed.

How…? I responded, a bit confused. How… not at this time of year?

The food styling contest that did not work in my favor

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My team had a virtual offsite the last two days (budget cuts in a sad economic environment), and one of the “fun” activities we did was a food styling/photography contest. At first, I didn’t think much of the contest. I wasn’t even sure I was going to enter it because I couldn’t be bothered to cook and style something this past weekend, but then I remembered all the other food photos I had styled over the years, and I decided to go back to them and see which one I might enter. So I chose a photo I had spent quite a while on: apple cider donuts. It seemed like a good idea given we’re now in September, so it would be very appropriately seasonal. I spent a while figuring out how to style the photos before you even factor in how long it took me to make and fry all those donuts! I even added some props: I put the donuts on a warm brown cutting board, added a mug of hot apple cider, and made a festive background of autumn squash and apples. I figured: this has to win SOME award; it was shot really well in perfect light, not to mention I used an Adobe program to do some light editing. I posted it on my food handle on Instagram over three years ago, and people really liked my shots.

Well, there were three categories where you could be considered in this team contest: most stylish, tastiest, and most likely to be eaten on our team. I did not win a single category. In fact, I later got told, when I revealed that the apple cider donuts photo was mine, and YES, I MADE those freaking donuts, that more than half my entire team (we’re about 33 people) thought that my photo was a “fake”: they thought it was a card stock image that someone threw in as a joke to confuse people, and there was “no way that anyone on our team could take a photo that perfect.”

This is what happens when you are good at something: you end up getting penalized for how good you are, and it gets used against you. I guess it’s the world we live in, so what else is new?

Omakase night out and reflections on how amazing NYC is

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I took my friend out for a much belated birthday celebration at a Japanese restaurant in Chelsea this evening. We sat at the counter for our 17-course omakase meal. As much as I love spending time with my Kaia Pookie and keeping her in a routine, it was nice to go out and get a little dressed up, and not have to worry about maneuvering a stroller up and down the subway stairs or into a narrow restaurant.

While at the restaurant, we sat next to a couple that was celebrating the wife’s birthday. We made some small talk and talked about Japan, California, food, and how we all got to New York City. They had previously spent the last eight years living in Japan, half the time in Tokyo and half the time in western Japan. Six of those years were spent teaching English. Though they are both from California originally, they decided to move out to New York after leaving Japan for job opportunities. They talked about how easy and affordable it was in Japan, no matter where they went, to get fresh, tasty, and affordable sushi, and how this is pretty much never the case here in the U.S. and how much they missed it.

I suppose when you live in a place for a long time, there’s always going to be things you will miss about it once you leave. It made me think about living here in New York, and what I would miss once we eventually leave this city. I think out of all the things I’d miss most, it would most definitely be the sheer diversity and variety of people here (which means, the craziest variety of food available!!); based on where I’ve traveled and what I’ve read and heard, I really do not think there’s a more diverse city in the entire world where you could probably be exposed to people from all ends of the earth in one single place. Queens itself is the most diverse place on earth, and that’s just ONE part of New York City! I will always have Queens pride and be proud of the fact that I spent my first four years in New York living in Queens. I’m even getting excited about going back to the specific area, Elmhurst, again this Friday to meet with friends for lunch. I feel like it’s always a mini adventure here in every neighborhood, and I’ve already been here for 15+ years.

My apple eating young toddler

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In June while we were in the mango capital of the world, also known as India, I was extremely dismayed and even embarrassed that my mango loving baby refused to even touch an Indian mango. My thought then, was, how did you so readily and happily eat all those Mexican ataulfo mangoes all these months in New York, yet now, you’re on some odd mango strike and just outright refuse to even look at a mango in the country with the best mangoes on earth?! How is this even possible?

Instead, and as though to insult her dad and me, when on a boat on the backwaters of Alleppey, Kerala, one of our servers offered a plate of cut mangoes and apples. And while completely ignoring the mangoes, Pookster turned to the huge slices of apples on the plate, skin and all. At first, I was initially wary of her eating such thick slices, but she seemed to manage them really well and even relish the fact that they were so fat. With each huge bite she took, she chewed and chewed, as though proud of herself and her amazing biting, chewing, and swallowing skills. On the one hand, I felt annoyed she refused the mango in favor of the apple. On the other hand, I was so damn proud of her eating skills. How many kids at her age would be trusted with apple slices that were that thick and fat? If anything, she likely could have handled them that thick earlier, but a) we didn’t really have apples in the house to test this out, and b) I was being a bit risk averse despite having her learn solids through baby-led weaning solely.

Today, she actually prefers fat slices of apple. And she rejects apple slices that are too thin! But alas, her eating habits have proven to be a bit different at home vs. at school. At school pickup today, her teacher let me know that Pookster prefers the slices fat, but cut in half horizontally. Say, what?! The weird toddler selectivity of my silly, cheeky Kaia Pookie.