My latest greatest struggle. After having my 3rd child I lost about 20 pounds beyond my pregnancy weight. I chalk it up to breastfeeding, the introduction of fruits, veggies and portion control as well as running. The weight literally just melted off. I gained and lost my "normal" thirty pounds or so with my next pregnancy, our youngest daughter. With Eli I was careful with weight gain and exercise from the beginning. I exercised throughout the pregnancy, literally until the day before he was born. I gained a few pounds less than normal though he was a bit smaller than all of my other babies. Since I have not had a baby to tend to and have been sleeping through the night most nights I have had time to devote to my physical well being. And I have. I got on the treadmill for the first time the week Eli was born. Since then I have been walking, and now running, my butt off. Or so I had hoped. It's nowhere near off. I hit my weight loss plateau at about the two week mark and I could not be more frustrated (though in all fairness I can fit into more clothes than I did at two weeks). I'd been walking usually two miles or more a day until the six week mark and now I've been running at least 2 1/2 miles at a time, using the elliptical on other days and have added in weight training and yoga. I have also paid close attention to my nutrition and have adjusted my calorie intake post pregnancy. Not to mention I keep up with three girls under the age of 7 on a daily basis!
I understand I may be a little impatient and to be honest I have no real specific recollection of how long it took me to lose my pregnancy weight with each pregnancy. What is sticking in my head is that I lost all of my pregnancy weight but maybe two pounds after having Wyatt by the time I got pregnant with our oldest daughter less than four months later. Perhaps my expectations are too high and really they almost always are, but it's such a sore spot!
Our lives appear normal and for the most part they are. My husband goes to work every day, my daughter to school and I continue to hold down the home front with our youngest two. It's kind of like the old Sesame Street game about one of these things doesn't belong. The ten plus pounds or so that stand between me, my jeans and feeling good about how I look. They don't belong.
I am going to take a deep breath and head back downstairs to the treadmill. It just has to start making a difference, right?
As petty as it sounds, that was a REALLY hard part of losing Tyler. The pain of the loss slowly starts to fade into an ache, not so sharp and raw. But the weight was a constant reminder that I had been pregnant yet it stung so much because he wasn't here. Hell, I'd have GAINED weight after having him if it meant he'd still be here with me. It's just icing on the cake...poo icing on the shit cake.
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