My daughter needs more cupcakes!

This is a recent photo of my daughter, Rima, which I used in this morning's post on AlmostFit (18 perfect excuses to avoid buying good food). She just turned one, and even if you can't tell from this shot, she LOVES cupcakes. However, it turns out that she needs to be eating a few more of them.

On a recent visit to the pediatrician for a checkup, we found out that her weight has dropped fairly significantly on the development curve - It wasn't entirely a shock since she really is tiny, but at the same time we were surprised that it had dropped that much. The Pediatrician wasn't terribly alarmed, but she was taking it seriously. Her advice was to bulk the baby up with some high calorie foods, see how that goes, and check back in a month or so to make sure things look fine.

The irony of course, is that her dad, er, ME, is busily trying to do the opposite for himself - cut those calories by eating better, and less of those things. So its a bit tricky to navigate the house when there are boxes of cupcakes to be foraged.

Alas, I am surviving and dropping the pounds slowly, and the baby is apparently tacking on the calories to her calorie count that I'm foregoing, so it is seemingly quite symbiotic.

So, my new diet plan is this: If you need to lose weight, and you have a baby, the baby gets the calories. It reminds me of that commercial for Twix: "Two for me - none for you!" - but in reverse. Sort of.

Tags: Diet, health, loss, moderation, weight

Comment by Lisa Newton on March 26, 2008 at 6:10am: She's a bright eyed beauty. You have many, many years of joy ahead of you. Please keep us informed as to her progress, and yours too.

Comment by Metroknow on March 26, 2008 at 8:11am: @ATD: We have not yet, but its a good suggestion. What the pediatrician suspected was 2 things: She was not napping hardly at all, and she was generally up from around 7AM to 10PM, if you can believe it (I was not, and am not to this day, a very good sleeper). One short nap, maybe. So her little body was burning calories all day long because she crawls non-stop! :) We've since managed to get her to go down earlier at night, and now through training she's sleeping more during the day which seems to be helping. And of course boosting the calorie content of what she's eating is helping. The doc. said, "If she likes peas, give her cream with those peas!" which she loves.

@Lisa: Thank you very much. She is the most precious little thing I've ever known (well, its a tie with my son - he can't read yet, but one must cover one's sibling rivalry bases... :) )

Comment by Metroknow on March 26, 2008 at 8:15am: @ATD: Oops - forgot the "second thing" that the doc. suspected: My wife still breastfeeds our daughter somewhat (in the weaning process), mostly coddling at this point (she's on nearly all solid foods otherwise), and the doctor said that while of course breast milk is great for a variety of nutritional reasons, it is also optimized for our daughter to burn right through it. So the best plan is to supplement that with more solids, as well as a dietary supplement (prescribed).

Comment by Metroknow on March 26, 2008 at 11:17am: Great advice - thanks Cynthia. Actually I should clarify - the cupcakes thing is kind of metaphorical. We eat based on the whole food concept 90 percent of the time, so her calorie intake comes from increasing those. Although if the girl wants a cupcake and gives me a look like the one in the photo there, I melt like a stick of butter in the microwave. I can already tell this whole "daddy's little girl" thing is going to be a heap of trouble. :)

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