Today is the first Monday in a long time where on the weekend, I didn’t undo the weight loss I’d achieved over the previous week. So, YAY ME! I still have 7 more pounds to lose to be at my “pre-pregnancy weight,” but that was AFTER the “first year of marriage 25,” not to be confused with the “freshman 15.”
8 weeks before I got pregnant, I worked out four to six times a week and was really starting to see a difference in my body. I only lost 6 of the 30 pounds I needed to lose, but I knew I was on the right track. I was on summer vacation from work and I felt great. Then I got pregnant in late August (completely intentional) and my exercise regime took a turn. I was totally going to be one of those chicks who worked out during her pregnancy. I thought I’d be Nicole Kidman, spinning the week before giving birth. I also thought I’d “lose” weight while pregnant, since I was already overweight, and that I’d just keep my actual weight the same, but the growing baby would eat up my extra fat.
I know, stop laughing, right? It’s hard to read the screen through tears of mirth.
I kept working out for the first several weeks after the cramping subsided and I was sure I wasn’t miscarrying. I took it easy, but for the most part, with my heart monitor in place, I continued my routine of ten minutes on the eliptical machine, 10-20 minutes on the treadmill, and 10 minutes on the spinning bike. When morning sickness hit me (usually around 10:30 a.m. each morning and lasting until around 8 at night) I tried to continue, but I just couldn’t. The day I almost puked all over the treadmill was a turning point. Plus, I started working again as a high school English teacher about a week after finding out I was pregnant and it became much harder to get to the gym.
I never went back. Odie and I took some walks in our hilly neighborhood from time to time. That was about all the exercise I got, other than the walking and constant standing a teacher does. I gained almost 50 pounds, most of it in my third trimester. I’ll never forget how proud of myself I was when I gained only four pounds the first trimester. I thought, “If I gain just four pounds a trimester, it will be perfect!” Yeah. Then I started gaining four pounds a WEEK.
After Baby V’s birth, I dropped 25 of the 50 pounds within a few weeks just from having a baby and nursing her. The other 25 stubbornly stayed. Now, remember, I was already about 20 pounds overweight at the start of this pregnancy, so things were looking a little scary. I feel really lucky that I avoided stretch marks (it’s genetics. I didn’t use any special lotions and I got BIG) and that I don’t have a bunch of loose, hangy skin on my belly. Everything seems to have snapped back to it’s old place, except my boobs, but who knows what they’ll look like eventually since I’m still lactating. And I have EVERY intention of having my boobies “done” someday. Odie thinks I won’t, but he is sorely mistaken.
Maybe this week, I can avoid my “down three up three” pattern of weight loss and gain. Last week I was down three and this morning, Monday, I’m STILL DOWN THREE! I’ve been stuck in this “decade” of weight for about 6 months, and I’m excited that in a couple of weeks, I could be out of it.
My diet sucks. I’m doing the Slim Fast plan for a couple of reasons. First, there’s nostalgia. It was one of my first diets as a teenager, when I snuck a large can of powdered strawberry Slim Fast into my bedroom and secretly made my weight loss shakes. I thought that Slim Fast was not so much a weight loss shake as an elixer of weight loss. I didn’t follow the diet plan so much as supplement my diet with the shakes.
For my 2007 wedding, I had to lose 10 pounds to fit into my wedding dress, so I procrastinated until about 8 weeks before the wedding and then I went Slim Fast. I actually also used Atkins Advantage shakes as well as their bars. I starved those 10 pounds off in time for the big day. I even kept them off through the honeymoon, since I had to put the dress on again a week later for my Los Angeles reception. I ate very little actual food, cutting my portions in half and eating very slowly. It was probably very unhealthy from a nutrition stand point, but it worked. For a while.
Now I am just going back to what worked before. My intention is to shrink my stomach and therefore reduce my appetite. I still have pregnancy appetite and can easily eat five slices of pizza or four tacos or an entire pint of ice cream. Back in my pre-wedding dieting days, I could barely eat five bites of food without feeling satisfied.
Total non sequitor, I am thinking of changing my blog to wordpress.com. On this site, every time I hit enter to go to a new paragraph, the cursor goes to the beginning of the previous paragraph. I have to try it anywhere from five to ten times to get it to just go to a new paragraph. When you only have five or ten minutes here and there, this is just an unacceptable waste of time.
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
