I’m certainly not the first woman whose body changed after pregnancy (some parts are far squishier than before). But my problem isn’t so much the remnants of that big, beautiful belly–it’s the habits I developed while building that belly.
Getting pregnant wasn’t easy for us. We went through a lot–false positives (that never happen) surgery debacles, many tears, miscarriage and more. I spent a lot of time imagining just how healthy I’d be once I finally found myself pregnant.
Then came morning sickness. I only vomited once, but I felt rotten for about 16 straight weeks (and I felt rotten about feeling rotten after wanting to be pregnant for so long). I had some serious food aversions. Very little sounded good. I ate a lot of applesauce, dozens of Tootsie Pops. The thought of vegetables, much less a salad made my stomach swirl. And though I knew that fish was brain food for my growing baby, I couldn’t imagine actually eating it. I quickly abandoned the idea of eating healthy in favor of eating something. Grilled cheese? Sure. At least on Monday. Tuesday might mean a BLT (without the L and the T). There were some lunches that consisted of orange juice and Starbucks’ bread. I could usually only come up with one item worth eating and it was rarely healthy. Though I’d never cared much for ice cream, I developed that stereotypical passion for it while pregnant. And root beer. I drank a lot of root beer.
By the time the sickness faded and the aversions went by the wayside, the damage had been done. I couldn’t very well start eating salads when Baby Blue had grown so accustomed to grilled cheese, could I?
Then came Baby Blue. And the magic of breast feeding. I found that I could eat what I wanted, have dessert and the weight was still coming off. They told me I needed to eat an additional 500 calories every day to keep up with my breasfeeding baby. Score! Bring on the ice cream. Not only is Baby Blue getting all of these benefits–improved immunity and all–I’m living it up and losing weight.
Then came the plateau. I lost all but a couple pounds of pregnancy weight and came to a screeching halt. The thought of weaning Baby Blue started to make me nervous and I knew that before that day came, I’d have to get a handle on my diet.
So here we are. If all goes as planned, I should be close to my target 20-pound weight loss about the same time I stop nursing. As Agent Oso would say, “It’s all part of the plan…
“…more or less.”
August 25th, 2009 at 7:44 am
That’s a great goal — losing the baby weight by the time you stop nursing. Unfortunately, too many of us have kids in the double digits and still haven’t lost the weight! I’m so fortunate to say I’m not one of them, at least not yet. Baker doesn’t turn 10 for another three weeks!