The only time I felt like I was turning back to my old self after a pregnancy was about five months after Joel (my oldest) was born. I walked a lot, enjoying the end of a Walla Walla summer and early fall. Three months out of the pregnancy I would go running for about an hour once or twice a week. There was this sense of refreshing as my sneakers hit the frosty grass of some of the athletic fields near our apartment. I thought all I had to do was get back to running an everything would be fine.
By five months, I was back in most of my old clothing and feeling great until I found I was pregnant a month later! Once again, I would be trying the same old workout routine to get my body back. I had this baby in October, so venturing out of the house was much more challenging. I never wanted to leave the house and when I did I could only walk outside for brief periods of time, since I was walking with two very bundled up babies. I lost about ten pounds after baby number two and the scale stopped moving. I made it two years, lots of running, and really trying to eat much healthier, but nothing seemed to work. When I started to see the scale move again, I was pregnant with baby 3, and down it was not moving!
This was the best pregnancy for me so far. I was already eating really healthy and I had finally found some prenatal workouts that I enjoyed. When Dominic was born I fit into my jeans, post baby two jeans that is, a month out of this pregnancy. I used a belly bandit and it really helped my back pain and confidence. I thought I had figured it out. If I thought of postpartum as a phase of regaining strength instead of jumping right back into my high school workout routines, then maybe I could have my body back again. I was just starting to feel great when along came pregnancy number four.
So this time I was unhappy because I really still wished I had lost some weight before this baby. I had gone from 103 lbs before Joel was born to 120 lbs as my starting weight for baby number four. During this pregnancy I was super strict about my diet and tried to be a healthy as possible. Struggles are still there like my love for chocolate, but I did not gain much weight and I thought I would have very little trouble working the pounds away.
Maybe my plans to finally look like me again would have happened if I did not get pregnant with baby number five. Up until this point I was still in a healthy range for body weight and losing it was not a big of a deal as it is now. I had baby five no problem and lost all but three pounds of my pregnancy weight in less than two months. I did not really gain much weight either, about 12 pounds, I had plenty of extra weight on me and gave birth to my biggest baby.
Unfortunately, after this baby my body did not want to keep that weight off. I went from 127 pounds to 134 in the five months postpartum. How did that happen? I was very frustrated as one can imagine. Plus most of my weight gain happened after I began to workout again. My workout routine after two months of pregnancy were about 30-50 minutes..NOT easy workouts either. I was doing Jillian Michaels "Banish Fat Boost Metabolism" and Crunch fitness "Fat Burning Pilates." I would run about three miles when I could. My daughter and I were working on "The New York City Ballet Workout" about once a week too. There were other similar themed workouts too, but none of this seemed to help me. I was GAINING weight. I knew I could not really go on a diet, but I needed to figure out a change.
Then I discovered www.momsintofitness.com. This Lindsey Brin website has made me retrace my steps to try and figure out what I am doing wrong. I want to either maintain a weight or see a few pounds go away. On this website there is an option for a free trial of her workouts, lasting a month and a weight loss calculator. On top of this there is some really helpful hints to using her diet and workout routines while breastfeeding. This is everything I have been longing to learn in one place!
So I took the leap a week and two days ago. I did the first week of workouts, only three days (1.3,5). Then in between I used Jillian's "Banish Fat Boost Metabolism" to get in some cardio (2, 4). Then I went on one thirty minute walk (Day 3) and jogged for three miles (Day 7). Day 6 was my day off, but I still went on a short walk (did not consider it a real workout though). Then instead of going on a diet I read all the breastfeeding rules on Lindsey Brin's website and looked at her diet for ideas of what I could change.
My conclusion was counter intuitive, maybe based on the amount of exercise I was doing, maybe I needed to sit down for a snack more. Our family eats super healthy meals, and I always make my kids a snack. When pregnant, I would snack with the kids, but I thought I could maybe get away with skipping a snack. My skipping a snack turned into a handful of chocolate chips or a cookie I baked for the kids. I did not focus on protein, which I have learned is even more important while breastfeeding than I realized. Yes, eat healthy, but just like during pregnancy, every calorie counts and one needs to feel full because one ate good nutrients instead of fluff.
Now I am eating three healthy balanced meals a day, plus adding a protein to my oatmeal breakfast and three protein focused snacks a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one before going to bed. After a week of making these minor changes I already feel a difference in my energy level and I have lost two pounds. Ideally one should not lose more than 1 pound a week, so maybe I can even eat a little more.
To stay on track of this I am keeping a diet journal. All of last week I calculated my calories based on each whole food using this website :http://caloriecount.about.com/whole-foods-market-nutrition-m1579. Also look on the back of packaged foods. I never ate more than 2,000 calories a day without even trying and most of the time I found myself in the 1800 range. Remember whole foods are not filled with extra hidden calories. One can eat quite a lot of food. Previous to this last week I was probably eating around 1500 to 1800 calories, not all of them good. I am still having a treat here and there, but my main focus is healthy foods like fruits, veggies, yogurt, etc. Now I am not tracking my weight so closely, but I am still writing things down, so I can look back to what I was eating and make changes if I need to.
Week Two is a bit more challenging. The workouts are a bit longer and I can say yesterday's workout wiped me out. I am looking forward to the rest of this month and will post an update when I am done.
No comments:
Post a Comment