Category Archives: Baby weight

Whip it

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Whip what, exactly?

My butt.

Into shape.

…well, what did you think I was implying with that title?

Perverts.

Anyway.

After a weight-loss plateau that spanned several months, despite my best efforts, I finally busted through and have lost four pounds. I’m in the 130′s for the first time since the first trimester! I’d love to get back to about 120-125 by the time Ethan is a year old. It’s five months away, so that gives me plenty of time (and a buffer for the holidays).

I’m not really one for counting calories, so I’m just trying to eat sensibly – with the exception of the unreasonable amount of pretzel bark I just inhaled, whoops – and make sure I’m moving around a lot. With a baby who has just started scoot-crawling, that’s not hard! I try to do a little yoga in the morning and again at night, make sure I do at least 15 minutes of cardio each day (which is often just me doing jumping jacks, which Ethan finds hilarious, then dancing around with him in my arms), then I just keep moving around as much as possible. It forces me to be productive, that’s for sure, and I am finding that now I don’t like being sedentary at all. While I used to be content to just sit for hours and hours on end, now I get incredibly antsy once I hit the 45-minute mark. When I’m watching TV, I find myself bouncing up at the commercial breaks and straightening this or tidying that or doing a few crunches.

It’s weird. I was always the kid who hated gym class. I dreaded running the mile because I knew not only would my time be abysmal, my not-yet-surgically-reduced chest would cause utter agony the next day. When I was little, I was very active, but as my body changed, I found it to be more trouble than it was worth. Why do a workout one day when it means I’ll feel like my back is breaking for the next three? For a while after I had Ethan, that line of thinking returned. It is difficult to justify exercising when it truly hurts. And it is difficult to justify exercising when everyone keeps telling you to rest whenever you can (and when that’s really all you want to do). But I’m telling you – even if you can’t get to the gym four times a week, and even if you have absolutely no desire to pop in one of those insane workout DVDs, just move. Wiggle around. Stand up at least once an hour. It makes a huge difference. It’s subtle – don’t expect to gain a six-pack from something like this – but I can’t believe how much I feel like myself now.

I think that, more than anything, makes it worth the extra effort. When I really don’t feel like getting off my butt, I just think about how nice it will be to feel like my pre-pregnancy self once more. I still have a long way to go before a new wardrobe is in the cards, but when that day comes? Look out. Mama’s going shopping.

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So much for September.

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I’m totally starting my Big Fat Dumb Self-Indulgent Pinterest Project on July 1.

My decision to start it sooner rather than later is twofold. One, I’m excited. Two, if I don’t start now I’ll just keep pinning to infinity and beyond and that’s just overkill. So beginning in July, expect to see posts relating to my dorky project!

In Mommying news, I don’t know if Ethan is already teething or what. I just know that if he’s going to chew on something, I really need it to be a teething ring and not my fingers. It’s fine for a few minutes, but it really hurts after a while. He has Hulk jaws. He doesn’t seem to be in pain or anything, so I’m chalking up the drooling and chewing to it just being what happens at this age. And crossing my chomped-on fingers that we’re not teething just yet. Please, please, please, kid, slow down.

I’ve finally broken the baby weight plateau – I’m below 145 at last! It only took three months…

My anxiety  has been a lot better since Ethan started sleeping more. I still have a lot of moments of panic and I’m definitely not entirely out of the woods yet, but I do feel like I can probably get through this on my own. I’m feeling more  like myself now that my weight is getting closer to normal and I’m getting a little more rest, and that is making all the difference in the world. I think part of the issue was feeling like my body was not my own for so long. Pregnancy tends to do that for you, and I had no idea how frustrating recovery could be. Once the pain subsided, I felt so impatient to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I may never quite get there again, but as long as I’m close, I’ll be content.

And now I’m off to watch “Bridezillas” because I am classy like that.

Sometimes, shutting up is your best option.

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So a friend of mine had a baby seven months ago. She has lost 60 pounds since then (half of which is baby weight, the other half of which is just her being way more motivated than me). Recently, she was out shopping with her daughter. A stranger told her how cute the baby was (true) and then asked when the next one was coming. My friend was confused for a moment, wondering why a stranger was asking when she planned to conceive again. During this pause, the stranger asked, “Oh…are you not pregnant?”

Okay. I think it’s officially time we all agree to stop assuming that someone is pregnant. Unless they are bulging to burst, rubbing their belly, and wearing a t-shirt that says “It’s a [insert sex here]!”, just assume they need to do a few crunches and call it good.

But it didn’t stop there.

My friend said “No, I’m not pregnant. Just still in the process of losing the baby weight!” A lie, but a very kind one in which she gave the stranger an out and a chance to save face. Apparently that wasn’t going to happen, because the stranger then went on to say that she was surprised the baby weight wasn’t gone yet since the child looked to be six or seven months old. Good math, stranger, but you’re digging yourself an impressive hole. My friend said that then she just sort of shrugged and said “Yeah…takes a while. Okay, well, nice talking to you…” and tried to escape.

As she walked away, the stranger called out “Well, good luck losing all that baby weight!”

I’m really glad my friend has the ability to be all like

image

Because I would have been all like

And that is what happens when I discover the joys of gifs.

The Depression Diet

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Well, that’s a depressing name for a diet. Appropriately enough. Actually, when I thought of it, it sounded funny in my head, but written out…well, it sounds like a real bummer.

It’s not, though! Actually, this is something that I think is going to really help me. So far, I already feel miles better…and it has only been a few days. I have always believed that the first line of defense against illness and malaise is the physical body. If your body doesn’t feel good, the rest of you won’t feel good either, and my body has (of course) been feeling wonky since Ethan was born. When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that the percentage of women who have postpartum issues isn’t higher, simply because of what our bodies go through during pregnancy and childbirth. I was lucky enough to have a pretty low-key experience, but some women go through some really traumatic things. Even with my dumb luck, I still went through the same thing every woman deals with – pain, aching, sleep deprivation, nausea, you name it. It’s a rough nine months, and then it’s a rough however-long-it-takes to recover…and all the while, you feel like a stranger in your body. It’s heavier, it has a new shape, and there are all sorts of surprises to deal with (scars, stretch marks, etc). On top of all that, most new moms find themselves eating whatever they can quickly stuff into their mouths – often foods that aren’t terribly healthy and are about convenience and filling rather than nutrition.

I looked at my diet for a few days and it was pretty bad. On average, I was eating next to nothing and definitely nothing good for me. Pretty much just coffee until late afternoon, when I’d shovel down a microwaveable meal, and then I’d eat whatever I had thrown into the crock pot for dinner. Now, it’s not impossible to make a healthy crock pot meal – it’s easy. But I was being lazy, and the result was a lot of very fatty meals with a lot of processed food. And I wondered why I wasn’t losing the baby weight? My poor metabolism probably wanted to throatpunch me.

So I sat down and did some research, looking for information about eating well on a tight budget. I made lists of the healthiest foods that also provided a lot of variety and were easier on the budget. Then it was off to the grocery store. A heart-stopping $100 later, I had a completely full fridge and pantry, filled to the brims with nutritious, easy-to-prepare food. It was terrifyingly expensive, but a lot of those items were bulk/nonperishable, so I won’t have to buy them every week. I’m pretty sure that the next time I shop, the cost will be significantly less. I plan to pretty much stick to this list, occasionally swapping an item or two or adding something “extra” to create a new recipe – it will be easier to  just “restock” rather than shop from scratch or from a random list of wants.

I’m forcing myself to eat three meals a day and no food that is processed, at least for a little while. I’m not a huge believer in the trendy detox diets, but I think it’s important to jump into this headlong and just get all the junk out as fast as I can. I’m doing my best to get all of my fruits and veggies, cut down on the bread, consume as little additional sugar as possible, and make sure I’m getting enough protein. Three days into this diet and I’m already feeling a huge difference. I have a lot more energy and I feel far less weighed down.

I am also making sure I am exercising every day, at least a little bit. If nothing else, I do the Bodyrock beginner’s fitness test (3 rounds of squats, push-ups, tricep dips, and crunches, totaling a 12-minute workout). I think once my body feels a little more like it’s actually mine, it will do wonders for my psyche.

I know I’m repeating myself a lot in this post, and I apologize – I tend to talk myself in circles and say the same things over and over again even in real life. Bad habit that I made absolutely no effort to break or even curb before I wrote this entry. Anyway, I’m going to keep a close eye on myself, get creative with the cooking, and hope that I can find a natural way to ease my anxiety. If this doesn’t work, I’ll go to the doctor, of course,  but I want to at least try this out before considering other methods. If I can eat my way back to mental health, I’d much prefer to do that!

I put olives in my chili tonight.

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And it was a good decision.

I found a recipe called “Belly Burner Chili” that intrigued me. While I tweaked the recipe a bit (just one pound of sausage and about a pound of potatoes, one can of tomato sauce, a little bit of diced fresh tomato, and I left the soy sauce out entirely), the end result is absolutely delicious. I know olives are kind of a polarizing foodstuff, so I’m sure a lot of people will be turning up their noses at the very idea of putting green and black (I used kalamata) olives in chili, but it’s actually really great. The olives don’t taste so olive-y along with all the other flavors and it creates a nice saltiness to go along with the spice and savoriness of the rest of the dish. I’m happy.

The thing that’s great about chili is that it can be a very healthy food, plus it’s cheap and very easy to make. We’ve been making chili almost every week since Ethan was born and I have never been happier to own a crock pot. It’s nice to just toss some ingredients into the slow cooker and just ignore it for eight hours or so. Insurance should cover them for new parents – we’d all be eating a lot better if that were the case!

Wow. This is riveting stuff, isn’t it? I think you can tell it has been an otherwise uneventful day. I didn’t actually accomplish any of the things I had planned – none of the laundry, the sheets still aren’t on the bed after being washed, the place is generally a mess – but I at least got in a ten-minute workout. Well, sort of. I had to keep stopping so that I could give Ethan his pacifier. I swear, that kid just does not get the concept of “keep pacifier in mouth” yet. He spits it out, waits a beat, and then freaks out. I know he’s a genius and all so we can’t expect him to be able to keep track of everything, but still.

In other news, I’ve continued exercising and though it has only been a few days, I’m feeling pretty confident that I can keep this up. I am only exercising between 10-20 minutes per day, mainly because that’s all I can spare the energy for right now and because Ethan’s schedule is still a little lopsided. I think once I feel a little stronger, I’ll take Ethan with me to our apartment complex’s workout room. He can nap and I can jog! I’m hoping to do the Color Run in September, which is a 5K. I have never run when it wasn’t required by public school, so this is quite an unusual endeavor for me. I figure if anything could convince me to run in a legitimate race, it’s the prospect of being covered in multi-colored powder by the end of it.

Setting a goal like that, silly though it may sound, has made me feel a little better in the face of my anxiety. I think it’s because looking forward to something helps me remember that right now is just that – it’s right now, and it will pass. I know that sounds cliche, but it’s true, and it does help. We’re also planning to go to visit my dad in about a month, which I’m really excited about…a few days at the beach should put me right. Especially if I manage to squeeze into the two-piece I bought last year!