Well. Here we are. I am over 1 year postpartum, and kicking of my actual postpartum weight loss. While I know I do not NEED to be focusing on weight loss right now, I WANT to – I want to feel better about what I see, how my clothes fit, be strong AF, and be a great role model for my kids.
But this time, I am doing postpartum weight loss differently.
When I originally kicked off my 50 pound weight loss at the end of February 2017, I joined 30/10. My specific one is now called Better U Today (something to do with franchises, but my people are still there!). I dove in wholeheartedly – I found the foods that I liked that they provided, I measured and weighed the food that I made for myself, and crushed it! In 5 months, I lost 50 pounds. and kept it off. I ended my first postpartum weight loss push in August 2017, and didn’t change more than 10 pounds until about March 2019. (Yes, I was very pregnant in March 2019, but I was SO SO sick that I lost weight at the beginning of my pregnancy, it was watched, I was fine).
After Dempsey was born, I immediately lost some of the weight put on just by removing the child from my body. I think proceeded to put it BACK on plus some, because I was trying to ensure I had enough breast milk for her. Because I needed to eat higher calories, I was exhausted, and recovering from a major surgery, I just ate without planning. My brain couldn’t deal with meal planning, and nor should it. We had ice cream almost nightly, a few delightful Dicks Drive In burgers, regular take out, and just enjoyed the babe. And I want to be clear:
I don’t regret that for a second.
The first several weeks after both of my babies were born were precious and enjoyable and relaxed and stressed and wonderful. Exactly what they are meant to be. I held no stress on the number on the scale, in fact, I never even looked. I get the joy of 5 months home after babies, which is far more than most of the mamas in this country, and I enjoy every second of it. (and, thanks to COVID, I spent 8 of Dempsey’s first 12 months at home – a blessing I know won’t be able to repeat again).
As we all know, babies grow and things change. So I hit a point where it was time for me to go back to healthy habits, and I hit a point where I wasn’t happy with what I saw in the mirror, and made a choice to change it – for myself. I have no desire to fit in someone else’s mold, but I have a strong desire to be strong, feel strong, and not hate pictures of myself. I want to boldly be in pictures with my kids and not critique it, and that is something I will always work on. In so many ways we are trained to want to look like the Photoshopped magazines idea of beauty, and that will be a lifelong fight for most women. We have taken great strides in changing that ideal, but we still have a long way to go.
I’ve also had to choose to be careful about my words.
I am well aware that there are tiny eyes watching and listening to how I treat my body. I have made the conscious decision to not call myself fat, especially in front of my kids, even if I feel it. If I turn to Aaron in dismay, I say something along the lines of making a choice for my body to feel strong and healthy. If I am feeling not so great, I say something like, “I think I am seeing my legs differently today than yesterday.” He knows what I mean, and its really true – day to day, various parts of my body are awesome and annoying!
It also helps me to stay positive with my own body – if I am not verbally bashing it, even if I am feeling it, I am not validating the feeling, and choosing not to give it legs to grow. It helps me in a small way to change my culture-set mindset, and even now, at not-my-ideal-size I am seeing things I love or thinking I look fine/good, which has NEVER happened before.
And then I put myself into action.
It is not enough to tell my kids I am making good choices to get stronger and healthier. I have to SHOW them. And show them I am trying!!! This time, I am trying something a little different. While I loved my first program and the speed at which I succeeded in weight loss, I didn’t feel like pre-made breakfast/lunch/snacks fit as well in my current life (and I, truthfully, didn’t want to add the expense mid-pandemic). So I am doing it with real food, different every day, and 5 day a week workouts. I am trying to lose and tone together, which is not impossible, but proving to be….different.
What does it look like?
It looks a lot like what I preach to y’all all the time: balance, moderation, not deprivation. It looks like making choices each day that leave me satisfied, happy, and content. These choices mean sometimes saying no to a dessert, whilst saying yes to an apple instead. They also mean sometimes saying heck yes to a cookie because I want to and I can and we’re living through a global pandemic and your girl has to find a way through somehow.
It means showing my girls that I will not be fully no-carb, that I will still have treats with and around them. The other day, Aaron said he wanted to get chips and at first I was like, “No! That will kill me!” then I immediately said “Wait no, get them. That’s better proof.” Better proof to both to myself and to my girls, that treats and junk food can be around, enjoyed in moderation, and also left alone when need be.
Want to see a normal day?***
Breakfast: two fried eggs, 3 sausage links
Snack: Premier Protein (Chocolate)
Lunch: Leftovers from dinner (today, taco salad with lettuce, tomato, onion, ground beef taco meat, a little bit of refried beans, a sprinkle of cheese, and salsa)
Snack: String cheese or apple or banana or a few Ritz crackers and some cheese
Dinner: Chicken breast marinated in BBQ sauce, steamed broccoli, and about a 1/4 serving of the rice pilaf I made for my family
Snack: glass of wine or prosecco, trail mix
Occasional treat: Snickers ice cream bar or a brownie
I won’t be sharing my calorie range because that isn’t the goal (outside of the specific 6 week challenge I did) and it is far more important to have a healthy relationship with food than copy a calorie range for someone else’s body that is wildly different from your own.***
Workouts: 3-5 HIIT workouts/week – delightfully, Kinsley, my eldest, loves to come in and “workout” with me. Mostly it involves her jumping around or laying on the ground mimicking something similar to what I am doing, doing her own yoga poses, or just cheering me on. I love every second of it, and we make it fun, because that is what a workout should be. Fun, not punishment. Progress, not “working off” what we eat.
The caveat: enjoying life.
Since quarantine started, Aaron and I have started a fun tradition. We wanted to help keep the small businesses that we loved going by getting takeout every Friday night from a different place. We would also get a bottle of wine from a local winery. And since we live near Woodinville, WA, which has more than 130 tasting rooms, we had plenty to pick from. This has become our favorite date night and an adventure in wine. We went through our favorites and have been taking suggestions on what wineries to try next, and have found some new favorites this way. Want to know what I eat on those date nights? Whatever I want. Why? Because its all about moderation not deprivation.
If I didn’t eat a single carb or drink any wine, I might lose weight faster, but that isn’t sustainable for me. The name of the game this time around has been “make it work, make it last”. If I am able to achieve weight loss whilst also having date nights and drinking alcohol or eating treats and that means it might take a little longer than you are darn right that’s what I am going to do! I am going to eat birthday cake and ice cream and get fried cheese curds if I go to the Tillamook factory and if my 4 year old offers me her french fry I am taking it!
That is what this is all about.
Food is a tool. I have a goal, but I also have tiny eyes watching me. Tiny eyes that don’t need to see me say no to everything over 50 calories. These tiny eyes need to see their mom say yes and enjoy life, and see balance, and hard work, and dedication, and moderation. They need to see me play, and work, and have fun, and not be worried about my waistline. My girls will get to grow up seeing their mom work hard because their mom wants to be strong. I love pointing out to Kins “look, I see my muscles growing!” because that is more important to me than my arm shrinking. They get to see and experience a mix of really healthy foods (I have an amazing bacon cheddar ranch casserole that is wildly healthy) and just tasty foods (helllloooo baked rigatoni).
What have my second postpartum weight loss results been?
I started quarantine with the mindset of, “Alright, workout, eat OK, and you’re fine. Just don’t gain 20 pounds.” That mindset didn’t work when I was also like, “ohhh, no commute, no needing to get ready, no one to see me…I can have wine and snacks every night with an occasional workout! Gotta cope somehow!” All this to say, I didn’t fully dive in to that plan until late April.
That’s when my gym did a 6 week challenge free for members. Food tracking, planning, calorie ranges, workouts, daily accountability and fun group challenges. Me being me and wildly competitive but also with epic levels of laziness, I expected to lose 35 pounds in 6 weeks and gain a ton of muscle and be back on my “eat whatever, do whatever” by July 4.
I was wrong.
By not doing the strictness of what I did originally having meals provided for me, as well as having to feed two children and a spouse, I obviously didn’t get the results I did originally. I’d do regular measurements and weekly scale checks and my brain would be like, “I lost 30 pounds in 10 weeks when I did this weight loss thing before! What am I doing wrong!?”
The answer? Nothing. I was doing it slow and normal, with regular results. Between April and June, I lost 7 pounds – SEVEN measly pounds – BUT thanks to measurements, I know I also lost 17.5 total inches from my body. That was proof that I was changing my body and it was the proof I needed to change my mindset. (Also, 7 pounds in 8 weeks is actually great. You should be losing .5-1.5 pounds a week max, even though your brain says that’s slow).
Since I hit maintenance, and get free check ins for life, I decided to go back to Better U Today and start weighing myself with an InBody scale to better track my changes, and I am glad I did. My results are bigger and better than anticipated. While my weight loss is currently (as of September 2020) about 15 pounds lower, my body fat has plummeted, my visceral (scary fat around organs) fat has dropped several points, and my muscle has grown. This taught me something new.
Postpartum weight loss is hard but doable.
It’s slower than I anticipated, but I am seeing and measuring success in different ways. We are surrounded by celebrities who “bounce back” seemingly instantly after giving birth. We are fed by the media “skinny quick” pills and shakes, and virtually no one shows the work (or the trainers and chefs) that get folks there. Even I had to learn it – my past self tricked my current self into thinking this would be easy again, fast again, over quick. I believe that this time is better, overall. It will be more sustainable, and I think that it continues to improve my relationship with food, which I believe is the ultimate goal.
So I will keep going on this postpartum weight loss push, however long it may take me, and wherever it leads me. I am trying to be open to all possibilities, all numbers, and just….satisfaction.
Disclaimer:
***This is what works for me, this is what I have decided I can manage. This keeps my body full and functioning. DO NOT start any food changes or exercise program without talking to your doctor. I am not a doctor. A healthy food relationship is more important than any calorie range or jeans size or number on a scale. Food is your friend, its a tool, don’t make it the enemy. Talk to a doctor. Seriously.***
