Baby Weight

When people, at least the people in my close cirlces, talk about loosing their baby weight, they are talking about the physical act of giving birth and having their blood volume return to normal, because once that happens, they are back at their pre-pregnancy weight, give or take 5-9 pounds. Yes, their pants might not fit quite right, but give it a couple of months and everything is back to normal.

Me, I gained more than 50lbs with my first child, and only lost about 25 of that with the birth and everything going back to normal. Then my pediatrician's nurse made me feel like I wasn't producing enough milk because my baby wasn't growing quickly enough her first week, so I ate more often and ended up gaining another 10 lbs. Then I had ankle surgery (yes, with a 6 week old new born) which put me on crutches for 6 weeks and in boot for 4 more. The weight was definately not falling off.

I don't think I did too badly while I was pregnant. Yes, there were often times when I would eat more than was neccissary, but it wasn't out of control. I wasn't one of those people who constantly said "I'm eating for two" to justify what she was putting into her mouth. A lot of my now-at-pre-pregnancy size friends were those people, and somehow, they are just as small as they were before the baby. I, on the other hand, am not.

My weight has always been an adventure, if that's the right word. I weighed 150 lbs in 5th grade. The reason I remember this is because I severly sprained my ankle that summer (it was actually probobly broken, but we didn't learn that until I was 18) and we were living in our camper while our house was being built. My dad realized he couldn't pick me up anymore and asked me what I weighed, and determined it was no longer safe for me to be on the top bunk.

When I graduated from high school I think I was around 180. I topped 200 during my freshman year of college when I hit the two hundred teens, but I lost 20 lbs during Christmas break by reading some book and journaling my food. My weight stayed pretty steady then for a while, hovering somewhere in the 190 range until I got married.

Not sure what happened then...wait...yes I am. My now- husband and I spent most of our dates going out to eat. I worked ridiculous hours that messed with my metabloism, and I ate simply to stay awake at some point on most days. The summer after we were married I topped out at 225 I believe, and realized I had to make a change. I started journalling my food again and got down to 202 in about 3 months. I joined Weight Watchers and 6 months later I broke the 170 mark on the scale for the first time since sometime in junior high. I was getting frustrated with Weight Watchers by then tho, first of all because as I lost weight I got to eat less and less and I was at the point where I truely felt like I wasn't getting enough food. I was training to walk a marathon and desperately hungry all the time. Plus, my goal weight was 150 (I'm only 5'4") and I didn't think I'd ever actually get there seeing as that was my weight when I was 10 years old. So, I decided to save the money each week and I quit.

I stopped tracking my food, but I continued with my exercise. I gained about 5 lbs back pretty quickly, but it stopped there. Until I got pregnant.

Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't give up my fantastic daughter to be thinner, but the thought of having to loose it all over again is daunting.

After my ankle surgery I joined Weight Watchers again, but as a nursing mother the points system didn't work for me at all. First of all, the numbers were completely arbitrary- if I ate everything I was allowed to I would gain a lot of weight. So, since I was getting essentially no guidance, I quit again. I started exercising again on a regular basis, and decided to do a triathlon. The training was successful, I didn't loose as much weight as I was hoping with it but I did make huge gains in my fitness level. I successfully completed in the first weekend in October. A month or so later, I became pregnant with our second child.

This pregnancy has been much better on the weight gain side- so far I'm only at 25lbs and I'm 8 months along. However, I started this pregnancy almost 30 lbs heavier than I started the last one and that's causing some problems- for one thing, my joints hurt. Secondly, the high blood pressure problems I had during my first pregnancy are multiplied by the fact that my weight is so much higher this time (no one has medically confirmed that for me, but it just seems to make common sense.) So even as I'm planning for this baby to come out and how life with two kids and two jobs is going to look, I'm also planning for how I'm going to loose this weight. All of it. I had some really cute clothes before I got pregnant with Lily and I want to get back into them. Or something similar. I'm not unrealistic about my body type- a body that has had a baby is not the same as one that hasn't. Unless there is surgery involved, but I don't have that kind of money.