Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Just a heads up that this will be my last FTLOF post for a couple of months, as I’m going back on maternity leave. You can keep up with the baby rosebuds on Instagram @daryarose.

This week decide earlier to make healthier choices, more adults getting food allergies, and what “natural flavors” really means.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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When Kevin and I first decided to start a family I thought getting pregnant would be pretty easy. Even though I’m 37, I know I’m super healthy and that my mother and her four sisters all had children in their late 30s without issue.

I figured that despite my chronological age, biology would still clock me in under 30 (later fertility testing actually showed this to be true).

Still, after several months of trying it didn’t happen and I started to become concerned. Had we waited too long?

At that point we started to get more serious. First I made my husband adjust his twice weekly sauna sessions (fun fact: it can take 3-6 months for sperm counts to recover after intense heat exposure). He didn’t want to give up the practice completely, so he would bring Ziplock bags of ice to rest his junk on while in the heat.

I also started using at home ovulation test strips and learned that the app I had been using to track my cycle was off by nearly a week in predicting ovulation. Oops.

When neither of these fixes resulted in pregnancy by the end of a full year of trying we decided it was time to run some tests to see if something was biologically dysfunctional. We both went through the usual battery of fertility tests and learned what we thought we already knew, which is that both of us are really healthy (not just “for our age”) and capable of conceiving.

This was great news, but also disheartening. If nothing is wrong, then why isn’t it working?

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Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week your “organic” milk may not be, boxed mac n’cheese contains banned chemicals, and sugar in pregnancy linked to allergies.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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3 weeks and blissfully ignorant

As a kid there were many things that I envisioned for my future. I wanted to go on adventures, to travel and explore the world. I wanted to meet interesting people and learn interesting things. I wanted to create a life I was proud of, and build something that would impact the world. Never did I think I wanted to be a mom.

That isn’t to say I never thought I’d raise a family. I figured it would happen eventually. It just wasn’t something I imagined or accounted for in my plans, and so it was something I continued putting off until… well, now I guess.

Kevin and I are expecting a baby girl in early November, a few weeks before my 38th birthday. The pregnancy was intentional, and we are truly excited to embark upon this new chapter of our lives together.

But I’m not going to pretend my feelings aren’t ambivalent.

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“With the hustle and bustle of working and being a mom and trying to fulfill all these duties I completely lost myself.” – Rebecca

Although she had never been completely happy with her physique, after having three children within five years Rebecca found herself over 100 lbs heavier than she was before starting a family. It wasn’t until she ran into a friend who had lost 100 lbs of baby weight after working with a personal trainer that she changed her mindset and decided she needed to start investing in her own wellbeing again.

Over a period of eight months Rebecca embraced a new self-care routine of fitness and nutrition and lost all of the weight. The road wasn’t perfectly smooth, and she struggled with some of the struggles that come with dieting including binge eating. Ultimately though, she was able to find balance in her nutrition, stop bingeing and truly enjoy her healthstyle for the benefits it brings her.

Rebecca has also been kind enough to share a before and after picture for us to see her transformation.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Relevant links:

Home Court Habits

After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

Does ‘The Biggest Loser’ Study Prove That Long-term Weight Loss is Impossible?

Listen:

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Stitcher

Listen on Soundcloud

If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. It’s been a few weeks so I went ahead and included 15 excellent articles instead of the usual 10.

This week pilates changes your brain, all your food is fake, and the big problem with people pleasing.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week how to stop using food as a drug, why you shouldn’t freak out about folate, and the FDA revisits “healthy.”

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I can’t even with Delicious anymore, which bums me out because I have years of links I was saving there. I’ll let you know if I find another resource for saving my favorite links. In the meantime I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week children change parents’ habits, science-based pregnancy advice, and the real truth about saturated fat.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week a strong case for eating beans, how to fall asleep faster, and the downside of 5,000 steps.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

For the Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. 

This week the pros and cons of fasting, body fat trumps BMI, and how water cuts calories.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app I just discovered to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

Want to see all my favorite links? (There’s lots more). Be sure to follow me on Delicious. I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »